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Why does the desktop module need something more than Paul's
"desktop" argument? (Though perhaps "desktop" is not a
sufficiently general name, as I think you said.)
I don't think it's desirable for Python to start introducing
half-baked and nonstandard environment variable conventions,
especially in this area.
1. Why should other people start following *Python*'s
convention here?
2. Any such convention may be overtaken by efforts with more
backing (such as freedesktop), leaving us with cruft in the
stdlib, perhaps even cruft that's in conflict with the new
standards (what if somebody with actual clout mandates START
instead? something will break).
3. Any program that wants to can follow this supposed OPENER
convention, without needing to bake it into the stdlib.
Having said all that, if you can get agreement from people
at freedesktop to agree on OPENER (which might well be
possible), and I guess set a useful default at desktop
startup, I will worship at your feet ;-)
I'm not sure what you mean by "the guesses that the module
makes". It makes exactly one guess: which opener to use,
and that guess is overridable with the "desktop" argument to
open().